The Touch of Jesus

"Darting between the overhanging cliffs, a boy scrambles over razor-sharp rocks, and then reaches out for a helping hand to pull him up. Crouched in the entrance to the cave 14-year-old Kalin grabs the bedraggled youngster and hauls him into the freezing cavern. Scrabbling on hands and knees they push aside the clutter of dirty clothes, rotting food, empty milk cartons and plastic bags and settle down on the cave floor carpeted with stinking layers of horse chestnut leaves. Amid the squalor of the cave on the outskirts of Cluj in western Romania, it is time for supper.

Kicking off his torn moon boots and, wrapping the frayed and stained jacket of an outsized man's suit around his skinny frame, Kalin snatches at the mound of stale vegetables stolen from the town's market and munches hungrily. At his feet is a tub of industrial glue that will provide desert - sniffed from one of the plastic bags strewn at his feet" (1). Two boys in gross conditions find help in the touch of each other. Conditions we count horrendous, but to them, fellowship in the privation and pain of life.

There is an Indian caste called the untouchable, or harijan. They are members of the lowest Indian caste, formerly forbidden to be touched by members of the other castes. How sad to be excluded from a common touch. Jesus identified with mankind in their hurts, fallibility and pain. It is said of him: "For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." [Heb 4:15]. Because He can be touched He can touch. God touches man and heals him; man touches man and often injures him.

When my wife was in an intensive care unit and on a ventilator paralysed because her drugs had been withdrawn, all I could do was to stroke her head. Words meant very little in a time like that. There are some situations where a touch can mean more than a thousand words. A car is wrecked on a highway and through the mangled wreckage someone struggles to reach the imprisoned victim, and is just able to touch their fingers. Words don't matter it is a human response to a desperate need.

Jesus came with a new order for children, and suffered them to come to him, took them up in his arms and touched them. The disciples tried to prevent him, but he knew that children need the touch of love, it builds security and confidence. Over and above all the great sermons Jesus must have preached the most graphic is when he reached down and touched the leper - this was agape love. Words like: "And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." [Matt 25:40) Great though his words were, he did more by taking the children in his arms, than all the eloquent sermons in his lifetime. How would you like to be touched by God?

The touch of Jesus creates an expectation of divine disclosure. He did it to quicken faith, strengthen hope and to put people at the door of reception.

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